


You Can Dance In a Hurricane (But Only If You’re Standing In the Eye)

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post 4x22, sooo about Curtis' assessment of Oliver & Felicity...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 05:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6942493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost post-4x22 Olicity. In which Damien Darhk does not show up at the loft so we can get some more of those “Thanks for not being dead” feels.</p>
<p>"She had to be the one who left. That much was clear in the moment. What’s become murkier in the weeks following, as her heart drums out a low, constant ache without him, is whether or not she has to be the one who stays away forever."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Dance In a Hurricane (But Only If You’re Standing In the Eye)

_A/N: Shout out to Treasure Mathstorm & nothing against accountants. This is an author’s note that will make sense at the end of the story._

_Title from “[The Eye](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWl_eNu4NUVI&t=ZWE4OTY3MmM2ZDA5OWQ0NzdiNWVmYjk0NmMzMzFhMDU3NmQyYTZjNCxIbFBERGNKNg%3D%3D)” by Brandi Carlile. Guys, this song. My friend played it for me this weekend and I nearly started weeping. Related: It gives me tons of Olicity feels._

**You Can Dance In a Hurricane (But Only If You’re Standing In the Eye)**

Felicity Smoak is not her mother’s daughter.

That much had been clear from a young age. Her first word was ‘Dada,’ her first steps were in her father’s direction, her mind was wired in almost the exact same way as his. All these years, she’s pretended like she forgot, but when Noah sits down at the computer next to her, the memories are crystal clear. Blue screens and screeching dial-up modems and laughing to near hysterics at a late night game of Treasure Mathstorm.

And despite her efforts to leave him in her memories, it seems they’re still more alike than she could have let herself imagine. Hacking alongside her father, it’s not hard to see how half of Felicity (at _least_ , Curtis was a rambling mess, but he had a point there) is made up of this man.

That’s probably why it stings a little more that it should when she digs out one of the barbs he tosses at her mother for further examination. But the feeling fades fast. Donna might have told him to leave, but it’s not like Noah fought to stay. Felicity’s stomach turns over once more when she remembers his comments about keeping tabs on her. He knew her algorithm, the one she made with Cooper at M.I.T., which means he watched one of the darkest periods of her life unfold online, and never even bothered to reach out. She was _paralyzed_ , for god’s sake, in an attack that got national press thanks to Oliver’s last name, and he couldn’t send so much as an email.

She’s almost over the “Daddy Dearest” of it all entirely when Donna drags her ex out into the hallway once again, leaving Felicity and Curtis to pace the loft, passing the last beer in the six pack back and forth between them. Finally, she’s had enough. She’s still not over seeing a massive hole erupt in the center of the city and not being able to reach Oliver – or _anyone_ – on the comms. She’s practically itching out of her skin.

She needs to see him. She can feel it in her bones.

“Curtis, you can see yourself out, yeah?” she says finally, setting the empty bottle down next to the sink. “I need to…run a quick errand.”

Felicity feels a little guilty for leaving her friend sputtering questions about her lame excuse, but she’s not really interested in having a conversation with him about where she’s going. Curtis is brilliant in a lot of ways, but he’s dead wrong about the two of them. Something inside her had bristled when he called Oliver a criminal, and then again at the comparison he was making. If anything, the proper analogy to be drawn was the one right in front of their faces. Or rather, on the other end of the computer terminal.

She and Cooper were Donna and Noah, Felicity just hadn’t had the chance to realize it until her college ex turned up evil undead a year ago. The two of them had burned bright, hot and fast, like a Fourth of July sparkler that scalds the tips of your fingers. She was too young to know better, he was already showing his true colors. She was strong and stubborn and he was a criminal. Cyber criminal, even, Felicity thinks wryly.

It never would have worked. Just like her parents.

Donna jumps about a foot in the air when Felicity opens the door to the hall, and gives her a look like a deer in headlights. But there’s too much going on in her mind to focus on pretending she doesn’t know what’s going on out here.

“I’m going out for a while,” she tells her mother absently, before turning to Noah.

“Goodbye, Dad.” The title tastes foreign in her mouth, as does the farewell, it’s not like she had gotten the chance last time around. Donna bristles expectedly, and Noah’s mouth twitches in a crooked smile Felicity realizes she remembers. “Thank you, for helping me save the world.”

“Thank you, Felicity.” The way her father says her name has her subconscious calling up memories she’d forced herself long ago to press down deep. But it hurts less this time around around. She’s older, but more specifically, it’s how she’s aware of Noah’s choice in the matter.

He had detached from her all those years ago and, in two decades, never let anything draw him back. This is how Oliver is different, one of the many reasons she’d wanted to explain to Curtis before her mind started swimming. The two of them had been practically magnetic from the very start.

_“Keep saving the world,”_ Felicity hears her father call after her as the elevator doors slide closed, and that makes her think of Oliver too.

She remembers how elated she was when she finally let herself accept that he was ready to stop running from her, from them, from the happiness he deserved. She thought she believed him in Ivy Town, when he started plotting renovations to the kitchen and talking in grandiose plans that stretched out for years in front of them, but really, it wasn’t until they were back in Star City – him under the hood and her behind the scenes – that she knew for sure.

To see not just Oliver, but the Green Arrow too, look to her as a partner in every sense of the word, that was her dream, and it had come true.

It’s maybe the most bitter irony of Felicity’s tumultuous life that it was ultimately she who walked away.

She had to be the one who left. That much was clear in the moment. What’s become murkier in the weeks following, as her heart drums out a low, constant ache without him, is whether or not she has to be the one who stays away forever.

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it tonight, when the elevator doors slide open on the ground floor it’s like she can sense him. She knows Oliver’s there, even before she steps from the lift to see him standing in the lobby with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, looking nervous, like someone who didn’t used to live here.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to see you,” he says, eyes darting everywhere and landing on his shoes. “I was trying to talk myself into going up. I just…I needed…”

“I know.” Felicity understands, but she really needs him not to verbalize those thoughts right now, even as she feels herself stepping towards him. They’re both still in shock from the events of the past few days, and if he puts words to what’s happening here, they’re done for. “Are you okay? C’mere, you’ve got some…”

Her hands are already pressed to his face – palms flat to his cheeks, feeling how they concave as he sucks in a sharp breath, while her thumbs sweep up under his eyes – by the time she realizes it’s not leftover eye black, just dark circles that smudge his handsome face. A face that’s drawn tighter these days, she’s close enough to notice.

“Oliver…” There’s a hundred things she wants to ask him, a thousand dimensions to her worry, a million tiny voices screaming at her to just wrap him up in her arms again, like she had a few days ago in the bunker. His eyes flutter closed at her touch, then snap back open, waiting for the end of her sentence. She also doesn’t want him to run. “Have you eaten anything?”

She doesn’t specify a time frame, and it’s worrisome that she doesn’t need to. He shakes his head almost unconsciously, and then pauses like he’s worried about agreeing to something. “Can we go to the diner?”

She almost says no. When they get to the 24-hour greasy spoon and are seated in a familiar booth by a familiar face, she wishes she had. She remembers watching the sun rise across his face from this exact booth, one morning early in their partnership.

_They had been up so late on a mission that the waitress assumed they were there for breakfast, turning up her nose when Felicity had ordered tuna salad. When Oliver took her cue and asked for an egg white omelet, she had kicked him lightly under the table and accused him of sucking up. The teasing grin he had given her in response had just about blinded her with possibility._

“So what’s with the bag?” she asks him now, mostly as a distraction.

“Thea’s staying at the bunker with Nora Darhk,” he explains. “I’m supposed to be getting some sleep before my shift on watch.”

“Nora Darhk. _Damien’s_ _daughter_ , Nora Darhk?” How she manages to still be incredulous after all these years, maybe that can be her superpower.

“Machin destroyed the underground city Darhk was building,” Oliver tells her. “He killed Ruve, but we got Nora out safe.”

“You saved her?” The guilty realization puts Felicity’s heart slightly more at ease, until she sees Oliver’s reaction, equal parts wounded and guarded.

“We have to keep her underground, out of sight,” he explains, and that’s when she understands. “We’re not sure Damien knows we’ve got her.”

They’re holding a child hostage. And it is 100% crazypants, but at the exact same time, _somehow_ , Felicity gets it. Moreover, it might be the _right_ thing to do? _No_. Maybe?

“She’s not in the cage,” Oliver offers, and she almost laughs out loud.

It’s moments like these, crazy random moments in their truly unbelievable lives, when Felicity knows for sure that she’ll never really be happy with anyone but Oliver Queen. How do you go back to real life after this madness? Would she be able to stomach the quiet, or moreover, the men who inhabited it with her? A gym rat accountant who works 9-5, whose feet stay planted on the ground, who has time for a fantasy football team in between mowing the lawn and teaching the kids to play softball?

“What was it like down there?” Felicity asks him once they’ve ordered, and again, it’s a distraction, but it’s also pretty much the exact same question. She says she wants a peaceful life, but would she able to stand it?

“It was _horrible_.” She’s not sure why, but his forceful answer takes her a little bit by surprise. “Armed guards on the corners, Hive-controlled closed captioned screens in every home, all of these people, drugged-up so they’d comply with a worldwide genocide in service of some psychopath’s new beginning…”

He trails off and Felicity almost holds her breath. It feels like the magnitude of this snuck up on them somehow. _“Keep saving the world,”_ her father had said. She’s not sure exactly when they started thinking beyond the city, and she worries that it was the same moment that a nuclear warhead hit Havenrock.

“You know what it was like?” Oliver continues, and Felicity has a feeling she’s not going to like his answer. “It was like Ivy Town. If Ivy Town was the dream, this was the nightmare.”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t save everyone,” she answers, before turning back to her food. She knows the source of the real hurt in his voice, and also, she’s not quite in a good place to talk about Ivy Town, with its domesticated sentiment and its almost-proposals and its genuine moments of uninterrupted bliss. As if it weren’t enough already that she had pictured Oliver cradling a bundle in a blanket when her mother jumped the gun on her big announcement.

“I’m sorry I showed up tonight,” he breaks her  with a voice that sounds like gravel. “I just needed to see you.”

Felicity pauses, certain that they’ve already tiptoed around this emotional land mine already, but apparently, Oliver’s just getting started.

“Every so often, I need to see you, or I forget…” he trails off again and looks at her hard enough that she worries he can see right through. “Keeping Thea safe, that’s my reason for living. But you…Felicity, you’re the one who makes me want to be alive.”

The bill comes, and he pays it. She doesn’t have the words to protest, but Oliver can read her mind or her mannerisms. “You’re unemployed,” he jokes, and she nearly cries a fresh wave tears at his teasing tone, the way it uses a part of his vocal chords she fears are starting to atrophy. “It’s the least I can do.”

They exit the restaurant and when one of her hands reaches for the door, he takes hold of the other one, lacing his fingers through hers in a sure motion that’s so familiar, it makes her heart ache.

“Where are we going?” she asks when he pulls her down the sidewalk in the wrong direction. Oliver just shrugs in response.

“Sorry, I’d offer you a place to stay, but I don’t really have one,” Felicity talks to fill the silence, but the warm, comfortable feeling of his hand in hers has her almost babbling. “I guess we’re both sort of homeless at the moment.”

He squeezes her hand tight, and somehow, she understands what he means.

_“You could really do that?” Felicity had balked at his claim, but made no move to untangle herself from under his arm as they lay, sweaty and sated, on the California king-sized bed, listening to the wind sweep waves across Lake Como. “You could just pick up and move here, right here, right now?”_

_The question had seemed ridiculous when posed to a man who had spent the better part of his last three years dedicating himself to an ungrateful city, sometimes for the sole reason that it was his home. But something in Oliver’s eyes, something dreamy and persuasive that was only getting stronger the more time they spent on the road, had her ready to believe him_

_“I only really need two things,” he had whispered right into her ear, and she realizes, as her heart breaks a little at the memory, that he’s been telling her this whole time. “Thea’s family. You’re home.”_

_Felicity had choked on her own gasp, croaked out something stupid like “You too,” and kissed him until she couldn’t breathe._

Because that was it. That was where her defenses, her logic, her carefully constructed walls built upon the foundation of Donna Smoak’s unlucky lot in love, started to crumble around her.

Her mother sent away her father to protect Felicity. To shield her from the harm he would bring down upon her. But she and Oliver have been over that already. She makes her own choices.

Donna gave up everything, even her own happiness, for the one person she loved most in this world.

They’ve been over that too.

_Her mother taught her how to protect her family and her household, but what if Oliver’s her home?_

She squeezes his hand in response, and lets the corners of her mouth tip up in a tenuous smile. She’s strong enough for this.

Felicity Smoak is not her mother’s daughter. Except maybe in the best ways, she is.


End file.
